Evelyn B.

Tribble and Nicholas Keene

COGNITIVE ECOLOGIES AND THE HISTORY OF REMEMBERING
Religion, Education and Memory in Early Modern England
Memory in Culture
Forthcoming titles:

Anne Fuchs Astrid Edl

ICON DRESDEN
A Cultural Impact Study from 1945 to the Present
Owain Jones and Joanne Garde-Hansen (editors) Translated by Sara B. Young
GEOGRAPHY AND MEMORY
Exploring Identity, Place and Becoming
Emily Keightley and Michael Pickering
CREATIVE MEMORY
j.Olaf Kleist and Irial Glynn (editors)
HISTORY, MEMORY AND MIGRATION
Perceptions of the Past and the Politics of Incorporation

Original German language edition: Astrid ErU: KoUektives Gedachtnis

und Erinnerungskulturen. Eine Einfiihrung. (ISBN: 978-3-476--01893-9)
published by J.B Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung und Carl Ernst
Poeschel Verlag GmbH Stuttgart, Germany. Copyright © 200S

Palgrave Macmillan Memory Studies

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 © Astrid Erll 2011
Contents

*
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this
publication may be made without written permission.
No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted
save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence
permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright licensing Agency,
List of Tables and Figures vii
Saffron House, 6-10 Kirby Street, London EC1 N 8TS.
Acknowledgements viii
Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication
may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
Introduction: Why 'Memory'? 1
The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this
work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
1.1 Why 'memory'? 1
First published 2011 by
1.2 Why now? 3
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN 1.3 What is meant by 'memory'? 6
Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers limited, 1.4 Memory, remembering or forgetting? 8
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, 1.5 Goals and structure of this book 9
Hampshire RG21 6XS.
II The Invention of Cultural Memory: A Short History
Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin's Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. of Memory Studies 13
Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies 1I.1 Maurice Halbwachs: Memoire collective 14
and has companies and representatives throughout the world. 11.2 Aby Warburg: Mnemosyne - pathos formulas
Palgrave@ and Macmillan@ are registered trademarks in the United States, and a European memory of images 19
the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. 11.3 Pierre Nora's liellx de mhnoire - and beyond 22
ISBN 978-0-230-29744--9 hardback 11.4 Aleida and Jan Assmann: The Cultural Memory 27
ISBN 978-0-230-29745-6 paperback
III The Disciplines of Memory Studies 38
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully
managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing IILl Historical and social memory 38
processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the Tl1.2 Material memory: Art and literature 66
country of origin.
111.3 Mind and memory: Psychological approaches 82
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British library.
IV Memory and Culture: A Semiotic Model 95
library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data IV. 1 Metaphors - productive, misleading, and
Erll, Astrid.
[Kollektives Gedachtnis und Erinnerungskulturen. English] superfluous, or: How to conceive of memory
Memory in culture/Astrid Erll; translated by Sara B. Young. on a collective level 96
p.cm. IV2 Material, social and mental dimensions of
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-230-29745-6 (alk. paper)
memory culture 101
1. Collective memory. 2. Culture. 3. Memory-Social aspects. I. Title. IV.3 Autobiographical, semantic and procedural
HM621.E7413 2011 systems of cultural memory
306.01-dc23 2011016888 105
IVA Related concepts: Collective identity and
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11
cultural experience 109
Printed and bound in Great Britain by V Media and Memory 113
CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne VI Media and the construction of memory 113
V.2 The history of memory as the history of media 116
V.3 Medium of memory: A compact concept 120

v
vi Contents

VA Functions of media of memory 126

131
List of Tables and Figures
V.5 Concepts of media memory studies
VI Literature as a Medium of Cultural Memory 144
Vl.1 Literature as a symbolic form of cultural memory 144
VL2 Literary text and mnemonic context: Mimesis 152
Tables
VI.3 Literature as a medium of collective
and individual memory 160
Table ILl Three dimensions of Halbwachs's concept of memoire
VB Afterword: Whither Memory Studies? 172 collective and fields in which they have been applied 18
Table 11.2 Comparison of communicative memory and
References 176
Cultural Memory O. Assmann 1992, 56) 29
Index 203 Table 11.3 Differences between stored and functional memory
(Assmann and Assmann 1994, 123) 36
Table V.1 Three functions of media of memory 129

Figures

Figure IV.1 Two uses of the term 'cultural memory' 99

Figure 1Y.2 Three dimensions of memory culture 103
Figure IY.3 Systems and modes of cultural memory 108
Figure VL1 The three levels of the mimesis of
cultural memory 156

vii
 Literature as (l Medium of Cultural Memory 145

VI The effect of literature in memory culture rests on its similarities

and differences to processes of remembering and forgetting. First of
all, literature and memory exhibit several noticeable similarities. These
Literature as a Medium of include the forming of condensed 'memory figures' and a tendency
towards creating meaning through narrativization and genre patterns.
Cultural Memory Form-giving operations such as these lie at the basis of both literature's
and memory's world-making. Second, literature is characterized by sig-
nificant differences to other symbol systems of cultural memory, such
as history, religion, and myth. It is at least since the development of
the modern system of art in the eighteenth century that literary texts
have been equipped with particular privileges and restrictions, and from
these results their specific contribution to memory culture.

As a medium of cultural memory literature is omnipresent: The lyrical VI. 1. 1 Literature and memory: Intersections
poem, the dime novel, the historical novel, fantasy fiction, romantic Memory proceeds selectively. From the abundance of events, processes,
comedies, war movies, soap operas and digital stories -literature mani- persons, and media of the past, it is only possible to remember very few
fested in all genres and media technologies, both popular and 'trivial' elements. As Ernst Cassirer noted, every act of remembering is a 'crea-
literature as well as canonized and 'high' literature have served - and tive and constructive process. It is not enough to pick up isolated data
continue to serve - as media of memory. They fulfil a multitude of of our past experience; we must really re-collect them, we must organ-
mnemonic functions, such as the imaginative creation of past life- ize and synthesize them, and assemble them into a focus of thought'
worlds, the transmission of images of history, the negotiation of (Cassirer 1944, 51). The selected elements must be formed in a particu-
competing memories, and the reflection about processes and problems lar manner to become an object of memory. Such formative processes
of cultural memory. Literature permeates and resonates in memory can be detected in many media and practices of memory; they are
culture. But at what points exactly do cultural memory and its sym- also - and in fact primarily - found in literature. In the following I will
bol system 'literature' intersect? How are literary media distinguished highlight three central intersections between literature and memory.
from non-literary media of memory? How do literary representations These are, first, 'condensation', which is important for the creation and
of memory refer to mnemonic contexts and how do those contexts, transmission of ideas about the past; second, 'narration' as a ubiquitous
in turn, refer to literature? How does a literary text become a medium structure for creating meaning; and, third, the use of 'genres' as cultur-
of memory? What mnemonic functions is it then able to fulfil? And ally available formats to represent past events and experience.
which methodological tools can we use to study literature's impact in
memory culture? (a) Condensation
With 'condensation' we look at what is arguably the main characteris-
VI.1 Literature as a symbolic form of cultural memory tic of literature. In German, the term Gedicht (poem) even maintains a
linguistic connection to Verdichtung (condensation). One of the major
Literature is an independent 'symbolic form' (Ernst Cassirer, 1994) effects of literary forms, such as metaphor, allegory, symbolism, and
of cultural memory. [t is a specific 'way of world making' (Nelson intertextuality, is the bringing together and superimposition of various
Goodman, 1978) and that includes, in our perspective, also 'memory- semantic fields in a very small space.
making' (see chapter IY.Z). Literature stands alongside other symbolic In memory studies, 'condensation' has come to mean, at least since
forms, or symbol systems, including history, myth, religion, law, and Sigmund Freud's Traumdeutung (1900; The Interpretation of Dreams), the
science. What are the specific characteristics of literature as a symbolic compression of several complex ideas, feelings or images into a single,
form? And how are those features related to cultural memory? hlsed or composite object. The result is over-determination: many
144
146 Memory in Culture Literature as a Medium of Cultural Memory 147

different associations about the past can converge in one condensed (for the present) is distinguished from that which seems insignificant.
mnemonic object; and therefore the object will lend itself to different The chosen elements, however, only become meaningful through the
interpretations. For example, the date '9 November' brings together sev- process of combination, which constructs temporal and causal orders.
eral German memories: the opening of the Berlin Wall, the November The individual elements are assigned a place in the course of events, and
Revolution of 1918, the Munich 'Beer Hall putsch' by Hitler in 1923, thereby also assume a specific meaning. In sum, large parts of cultural
and the Reichspogromnacht in 1938. In a palimpsest-like structure, dif- memory seem to be configured in much the same structure, namely
ferent events and different meanings converge into the memory of narrative, that we encounter in large parts of literature. (Though it must
Germany's highly ambivalent past. also be emphasized that neither all of literature nor all of memory is
The idea of condensation can be found not only in psychoanalytical inherently narrative. Visual, olfactory, and unconscious memories seem
approaches to memory. It has also been at the heart of ancient and medi- essentially non-narrative, although one could argue that they become
eval ars memoriae (see III.2.1); and it is clearly present in the more recent conscious and meaningful through narrativization.)
theories of cultural remembrance, from Aby Warburg's 'pathos formula', The 'most narrative' of all our individual memory systems is auto-
to Maurice Halbwachs's 'idee etoffee', E.R. Curtius's 'topos', Pierre Nora's biographical memory. From the mass of disparate lifetime events, we
lieu de memoire, and to Jan Assmann's Erinnerungsfigur (memory figure). retrospectively select some experiences, and turn them - through the
Ann Rigney (2005) has shown how different memories tend to 'converge use of narrative structures - into coherent, meaningful life stories (see
and coalesce' into a single site of memory. And finally, condensation is chapter III.3.2). Aleida Assmann transfers these insights to the level of
also at the basis of those global icons, 'transnational symbols', and 'float- the Cultural Memory; Nations, ethnic and religious groups create narra-
ing signifiers' which move across time and space (see chapter IIl.1.6). tives ('myths') which tell the story of their origins and distinctiveness.
Just like literary works, and because both are the result of condensa- Mnemonic communities tend to remember only those 'elements which
tion, cultural memories require active reception, interpretation. The are tied into the configuration of the story' (A. Assmann 1999, 13S).JUSl
memory of 'Versailles', to give just one example, assumed rather differ- like the narratives of autobiographical memory, the story - or 'master
ent meanings in its various contexts: before and after the First World narrative' - of the Cultural Memory rests on the 'process of selection,
War, in France and in Germany, among pacifists and revanchists. connection, and the creation of meaning' (ibid., 137).
'Reading' memory is what social groups continually, and often contest- Narrative structures playa significant role in every memory culture.
ingly, do. If we want to reconstruct such interpretive practices - and We find them in the life stories and anecdotes that are listened to oral
thus gain insight into the dynamics of cultural memory -, then one historians; and in the patterns of oral tradition on which anthropolo-
way to proceed is by looking at the various narratives, which unfold gists focus. The main function of narrative in culture is, according to
condensed mnemonic objects into meaningful stories. J6rn Riisen, 'temporal orientation', the linking of past, present and
future in a meaningful way (see Ill. 1. 1; see Ricoeur's theory of time and
(b) Narration
narrative in chapter V1.2). The narrativization of historical occurrences
Cultural memory rests on narrative processes. To be more precise, every and pre-narrative experience first allows their interpretation. Even the
conscious remembering of past events and experience - individual and profoundly condensed, and arguably non-narrative, lieux de memoire are
collective - is accompanied by strategies which are also fundamental for generally entwined with and accompanied by stories, which circulate
literary narrative. In analysing literary works, proponents of structural- in social contexts and endow those sites with their changing meanings.
ist narratology make a fundamental distinction between the paradig- The world of cultural memory is a world of narrative. (But this does not
matic aspect of the selection of narrative elements and the syntagmatic mean that it is a world of 'fiction,' fictionality is one of the privileges of
aspect of their combination. Such a differentiation can also prove useful the symbol system of literature; see chapter VI. 1.2.)
in looking at memory: Both individual and collective memory are only
capable of taking up a limited amount of information. From the abun- (c) Genre
dance of impressions, dates, or facts, only a few elements can be selected Genres are conventionalized formats we use to encode events and expe-
to be encoded and remembered. In this way, that which is important rience; and repertOires of genre conventions are themselves contents
 Literature as a Medium of Cultural Memory 149
148 Memory i/1 Culture

of memory. They belong to the body of cultural knowledge which to interpret. For example, in late-nineteenth-century British fictions
individuals acquire through socialization and enculturation. We auto- of empire, the genre patterns of romance provided a ready format for
matically draw on genre schemata (retained in our semantic memory) dealing with colonial anxieties. In poems and novels rememberin
when we read literary texts - so that, for example, we expect death at the First World WaI, it was - of all genres - the pastoral which author~
the end of a tragedy, and a wedding at the end of a comedy. But genre f~ll b~ck on to convey the traumatic experience of the trenches, pro-
schemata are also an essential component of autobiographical memory. VIde Images of peace, and reconnect with tradition (Fussell 1975). By
The Bildungsroman, the adventure novel, and the spiritual autobiogra- the same token, the emergence of new genres can also be understood
phy, for instance, proVide models of individual of development, which as an answer to mnemonic challenges. At the end of the twentieth
rememberers tend to fall back on when they want to explain the course cent~ry, t~e postmodern insight into the constructed nature of history
of their lives (see Brockmeier 2001). Such genre memories are also an and Identity found suitable expreSSion in the genre of historiographic
inherent part of the historical imagination (see Olick 1999b). Using metafiction (see Ntinning 1997).
nineteenth-century historiography as an example, Hayden White
VL1.2 Literature and other symbolic forms: Differences
(Meta history, 1973) has shown to what extent the choice of plot struc-
ture already pre-forms the meaning given to an historical event. The Because literary and mnemonic processes have many resemblances,
encoding of selected elements into opening, transitional, or closing literature seems ideally suited to be a medium of cultural memory. And
motifs and their emplotment according to what Northrop Frye (1957) yet literary works should not be considered as being simply equivalent
has identified as the archetypical narrative forms of romance, comedy, to media of other symbolic forms that playa role in the making of cul-
tragedy, and satire are various strategies of historical explanation, which tural memory - such as chronicles, historiography, legal texts, religious
White moreover associates with specific ideological implications: anar- writings, and mythic tales. In the construction of memory, the symbolic
chist, radical, conservative and liberal. form of literature displays distinctive characteristics. In the following,
Because literature is the site on which genre patterns manifest them- we offer four brief descriptions of these characteristics: fictional privi-
selves most visibly (and in a socially sanctioned way), it is of pivotal leges and restrictions, interdiscursivity, polyvalence, and the 'reversible
importance for the circulation of memory genres. Literature takes up figure' of production/reflection.
existing patterns, shapes and transforms them, and feeds them back
(aJ Fictional privileges and restrictions
into memory culture. Around 1800, for example, the process of a per-
son's intellectual and social maturation found expression in the new One of the most important differences between literature and other
literary genre of the Bildungsroman; and in turn, its typical plot structure symbolic forms results from the fictional status of literary works which
of development became a powerful and persistent cultural model for Wolfgang Iser conceives of as the result of 'fictionalizing acts' (see Iser,
the understanding an individual's coming-of-age. Other literary genres The Fictive and the Imaginary, 1993). According to Iser's phenomenologi-
have primarily been used to encode the Cultural Memory. The epiC, for cal and anthropological theory of literature, every fictional represen-
example, was long a core pattern when it came to explaining the origin tation rests on two forms of boundary-crossing: Elements of external
and uniqueness of an ethnic group. In nineteenth-century Europe, the 'reality' are repeated in the literary text, but not simply for their own
historical novel became a dominant memory genre which represented sake. In the context of the fictional world, the repeated reality becomes a
the course of history and helped shape national identities. Pierre Nora sign and takes on other meanings. On the other hand, the 'imaginary' -
(2001) has shown that at the same time statesmen's memoirs were used which according to lser 'tends to manifest itself in a somewhat diffuse
to exemplify French identity and values. manner, in fleeting impressions that defy our attempts to pin it down
Genres are also a method of dealing with challenges that is faced by in a concrete and stabilized form' (ibid., 3) - is given form through its
a memory culture. In uncommon, difficult, or dangerous circumstances representation in the medium of fiction, thereby achieving a determi-
it is especially traditional and strongly conventionalized genres which nacy which it did not previously possess. We are thus dealing here with
writers draw upon in order to provide familiar and meaningful pat- 'two distinct processes.... Reproduced reality is made to point to a "real-
terns of representation for experiences that would otherwise be hard ity" beyond itself, while the imaginary is lured into form.' The result is
150 Memory in Culture Literature as a Medium of Cultural Memory 151

that 'extra textual reality merges into the imaginary, and the imaginary and contested memories and create mnemonic multiperspectivity. In
merges into reality' (ibid.) Through this interplay between the real and a world of increasingly specialized - and separated - discourses (such
the imaginary, fictional texts restructure cultural perception. In modern as those of history, theology, economy, and law), literature thus also
societies, an unwritten social compact restricts access to the realm of the acts as a 'reintegrative interdiscourse' (Link 1988), as a medium which
imaginary to the symbol system of literature. Imaginary elements do brings together, and re-connects, in a single space the manifold discrete
also, it is true, find their way into the memory created by religious, and parlances about the past
probably also historiographic writings. However, it is only in the literary
(c) Polyvalence
text that they are simultaneously marked and accepted as imaginary.
As Ansgar NOnning (1997) has shown, literature's power in culture [n the medium of literature, the condensation and over-determination
rests on a number of 'fictional privileges'. Fictive narrators, the rep- which are at the basis of every process of remembering are augmented
resentation of consciousness, the integration of unproven and even in such a way that literary representations of the past usually display a
counterfactual elements into the representation of the past, and the semantic compleXity foreign to other media of cultural memory. Highly
imagination of alternative realities belong to the privileges enjoyed by ambiguous versions of memory are therefore reserved for the symbolic
the symbolic form of literature. It is these privileges that allow us to form of literature (see Eco 1989; on 'polyvalence' as a literary conven-
distinguish between historical fiction and historiography on the level tion, see Schmidt 1992). Aesthetic theories postulate that art's affective
of the text. But according to the 'logic of literature' (Hamburger 1957), potential and power derive from its very complexity. This pertains also
the fictional status of literary works and their resultant depragmatiza- to literature's specific role in memory culture.
tion will also lead to certain restrictions, such as a severely limited claim
to referentiality, adherence to facts, and objectivity (see Cohn 1999). (d) Production/reflection of memory
Literary representations of the past are distinct from historiography in A specific feature of literature, and indeed of art in general, is its ability
this aspect. They are also distinct from autobiographies and memoirs - to offer (as systems theory would formulate it) first- and second-order
however 'literary' in style those may be. Having said this, it must also observations of the world simultaneously (see Luhmann 2000a). On the
be conceded that in the social sphere these distinctions are by far not as one hand, literary works construct versions of the past: affirmative and
clear-cut as in literary theory. It is especially in connection with cultural subversive, traditional and new ones. On the other hand, they make
remembrance that we find rather complicated performances of what exactly this process of construction observable, and thus also criticiz-
Philippe Lejeune (1975) has called the 'autobiographical pact'. able. Literary works are memory-productive and memory-reflexive, and
often, like a reversible figure, simultaneously. There are varying ratios of
(b) Interdiscursivity memory-productivity and memory-reflexivity in literature, which may
As Mikhail M. Bakhtin (1981) showed as early as the 1920s, literary be characteristic of certain periods or genres. (The history of the histori-
works are characterized by their 'heteroglossia.' They represent vary- cal novel proves a good example of those changing ratios.)
ing idioms and discourses and bring them together in the space of a All of the distinctive characteristics of literature discussed here must
single text. Bakhtin emphasizes that 'all languages of heteroglossia ... be seen as 'conventions of the modern system of literature' (see Schmidt
are specific points of view on the world, forms for conceptualizing the 1992). They may take on a different shape in earlier historical times
world in words, ... each characterized by its own objects, meanings, and or in non-western contexts. Bearing these limitations in mind, it can
values. As such they may all be juxtaposed to one another, mutually nevertheless be maintained that much of modern western literature's
supplement one another, contradict one another, and be interrelated specific contribution to cultural memory seems to have rested on the
dialogically' (Bakhtin 1981, 29lf.). By representing different ways of interplay between literature's similarities with mnemonic processes on
speaking about the past (and of memory), literature gives voice to the the one hand, and its differences to competing media of memory on the
epistemological and ideological positions connected with these lan- other. Certainly, literature is only one way of memory-making among
guages. In this way, literary works can display and juxtapose divergent many. It shares methods with everyday storytelling, historiography,
152 Memory in Culture
Literature as a Medium of Cultural Memory 153

and even with monuments. Yet at the same time, literature, because of 3. their refiguration in the frameworks of different mnemonic
its unique characteristics, offers representations of the past which are communities.
significantly different to those of other symbol systems. Literature can
inject new and distinct elements into memory culture. VI.2.1 Mnemonic prefiguration: DraWing on the reality of
memory culture
VI.2 Literary text and mnemonic context: Mimesis Ricoeur points out that our experience of reality is symbolically pre-
formed, or prefigured. Cultural practice establishes a 'conceptual net-
How does literature construct versions of the past? Which different work' that makes 'practical understanding' possible (1984,55). Cultures
processes must be considered when one speaks of the 'literary crea- create symbolic orders which include, among other aspects, value
tion of cultural memory'? What is the relationship of literary text and hierarchies and an understanding of temporal processes. Within this
the sociocultural contexts of remembering and forgetting? One model complex, symbolically mediated 'world of action', our experiences are
which can help to illustrate these complex interrelations between lit- characterized by their 'prenarrative quality' (74). Ricoeur emphasizes
erature and cultural memory is that developed by Paul Ricoeur in his that every literary text is related to this extra-literary world. The idea of
philosophical treatise on time and narrative Temps et Recit (1983-5; mimesis! brings home the fact that 'whatever the innovative force of
Time and Narrative, 1984-6). Ricoeur proceeds from the presupposi- poetic composition ... may be, the composition of the plot is grounded
tion that 'time becomes human time to the extent that it is organized in a pre-understanding of the world of action, its meaningful structures,
after the manner of a narrative; narrative, in turn, is meaningful to the its symbolic resources, and its temporal character' (54).
extent that it portrays the features of temporal experience' (1984, 3). To Looking at mnemonic prefiguration means focusing attention on
illustrate the dynamics of fictional narrative in the making of human those areas of pre-understanding that concern cultural memory. It is
time he introduces the model of a 'circle of mimesis,' Ricoeur refers in the 'textual repertOire', to use Wolfgang lser's term, that the literary
to the classical concept of mimesis that goes back to Aristotle, but he text's prefiguration becomes palpable: The structure of its paradigmatic
differentiates among three levels of representation, which he terms axis of selection indicates from which cultural fields the text draws its
mimesis 1, mimesis z and mimesis 3 • For Ricoeur, literary world-making elements. Literature can refer to the material dimension of memory
rests on a dynamic transformation process - on the interaction among culture (for example, historiography, memorials, memory movies,
the 'prefiguration' of the text, that is, its reference to the already exist- and discourses about the past); to its social dimension (for example,
ent extratextual world (mimesis 1); the 'textual' configuration, with its commemorative rituals, different mnemonic communities and institu-
major operation of emplotment, which creates a fictional world (mime- tions); and to its mental dimension (for example, values and norms,
sisz); and the 'refiguration' by the reader (mimesis3). In this approach, stereotypes and other powerful schemata for representing the past).
literature appears as an active, constructive process, in which cultural It appropriates elements from these dimensions through intertextual,
systems of meaning, narrative operations, and reception participate intermedial, and interdiscursive references.
equally, and in which reality is not merely reflected, but in fact 'poeti- Literature fills a niche in memory culture, because like arguably no other
cally refigured' (xi) and 'iconically augmented' (81). Text and contexts, symbol system, it is characterized by its ability - and indeed tendency _ to
the symbolic order of extratextual reality and the fictional worlds refer to the forgotten and repressed as well as 'the unnoticed unconscious
created within the medium of literature, enter into a relationship of and unintentional aspects of our dealings with the past. It {s thus alread;
mutual influence and change. on the level of mimesis!, through the references that constitute the tex-
Slightly reformulating Ricoeur's tripartite model for the purpose of tual repertOire, that literature actualizes elements which previously were
conceiving of literature as a medium of cultural memory, we can distin- not - or could not be - perceived, articulated, and remembered in the
guish among three aspects of mnemonic mimesis: social sphere. Through the operation of selection, literature can create
new, surprising, and otherwise inaccessible archives of cultural memory:
1. the prefiguration of a literary text by memory culture, Elements from various memory systems and things remembered and for-
2. the literary configuration of new memory narratives, and gotten by different groups are brought together in the literary text.
154 Memory in Culture
Literature as a Medium of Cultural Memory 155

VI.2.2 Literary configuration: The creation of fictional 'marks the inter,section of the world of the text and the World of the
memory narratives hearer or reader .(198~, 71). In the act of reading fiction enters into a
With the term mimesis z Ricoeur (1984,53) describes 'the concrete process renewed connectIOn WIth the world of action What results'
, '. . IS not only
by which the textual configuration mediates between the prefiguration the reader s actualIzatIOn of that which is represented in II'te t b
. ,.. ra ure, ut
of the practical field and its refiguration through the reception of the at the same time the IConIC augmentation' (81) of reality 'It' l'
' . . IS on y m
work'. Elements chosen within the framework of mimesis] are connected ~e~dmg that the. dyn~mlsm of configuration completes its course. And
syntagmatically and moulded into a specific story. While in the extratex- It IS beyond readmg, m effective action, instructed by the works handed
tual world elements of the conceptual network may exist 'in a relation of down, that the configuration of the text is transformed into ref'
. , (R' 19ura-
intersignification' (55), in the literary text they we find them arranged, tlOn lcoeu.r 1988, 159). The meaning(s) ascribed by readers thus affect
or emplotted, in a certain temporal and causal order. Within the narra- not onl~ theu understanding of the text. Literary works can also change
tive structure of the literary text, every element has its place and thus perceptIOns of reality and in the end - through the readers' act'
also gains its meaning. 'This passage from the paradigmatic to the syn- wh'ICh can be 'mfluenced by literary models - also cultural practiceJOn~ d
tagmatic constitutes the transition from mimesis! to mimesis z. It is the thereby reality itself. an
work of the configurating activity' (66). It is also the passage into fiction; One of the first 'actions' to result from the refiguration of Iiterat
with their configuration into a story the ontological status of the chosen d' ure
as a me mm of memory is temporal orientation: With their narrative
elements changes: 'With mimesis z opens the kingdom of the as if (64). structure, .literary stories shape our understanding of the sequence
Literary mimesis is therefore not simply a re-presentation of reality; in fact, and mea.mng of events, and of the relation between past, present and
configuration is an active, constructive process, a creation of reality, so future. Literature moulds memory culture thus through its structure and
that the term 'poiesis' seems a more fitting description (66). forms, but of course, and more obViously so, also through its contents:
Ricoeur emphasizes the 'emplotment's mediating role in the mimetic Representations of historical events (such as wars and revolutions)
process'. Mimesis z is the site where 'a prefigured time ... becomes a refig- and ch~racters (such as kings and explorers), of myths and imagined
ured time through the mediation of a configured time' (54; emphasis in the memofles can have an impact on readers and can re-enter, via mimesis ,
original). The level of configuration is thus the key to literature's role as a 3
the world of action, shaping, for example, perception, knOWledge and
medium of cultural memory. It is here that literary works bring together, everyday communication, leading to political action - or prefiguring
reshape and restructure real and imaginary practices of remembering and further representation (and this is how the circle of mnemonic mimesis
forgetting. With their transition into the literary text, elements of cultural continues to revolve).
memory are separated from their original contexts and can be combined .wit~ a view to literature's effects on the collective level of memory,
and arranged in novel ways, into new and different memory narratives. ~esls3 should, however, be conceived of as collective refiguration, as
Not only emplotment is to be counted among the configurating SOCIally shared ways of reading. There are two conditions for literary
activities taking place on the level on mimesisz. Other literary forms also works to affect cultural memory: They must be received as media of
contribute in great measure to the creation of fictional memory narra- memory; and they must be read in a broad swathe across society. Clues
tives: Narrative voice, perspective, and focalization, literary chronotopoi to such an 'effective presence' of literary texts in memory culture are
(time-space combinations), metaphors, and symbols, to name just some provided by public debates as well as bestseller lists, forms of institu-
particularly significant examples, are strategies involved in the perform- tionalization suc~ as their being added to school or university curricula,
ance, or staging, of cultural memory in literature (see also V1.2.4). and the use of lIterary quotes in everyday speech. Social institutions
~ay attempt to monitor, force or curtail the collective refiguration of
VI.2.3 Collective refiguration: Effects of literature in literary texts - for example, by canonization. Political intervention
memory culture such as censorship and state-sponsored publications, must be taken int~
account. B~t economic factors, publishing and marketing strategies also
According to Ricoeur, the act of reading brings about the transition playa cruCIal role. As far as the appropriation and interpretation of liter-
between mimesis z and mimesis 3 and closes the mimetic circle. Mimesis3 ary works is concerned, we must start from the premise of the existence
156 Memory in Culture
Literature as a Medium of Cultural Memory 157

place ~n the opposite dir,~ctio~: On the level of mimesis , (collective)

of mnemonic 'interpretive communities' (see Fish 1980). Social groups
agree or disagree on possible refigurations and on the value of a literary 3
receptIOn ma~ lead to an Iconic augmentation' of memory culture, and
text for cultural memory. In all of these social processes, power is a fac- shape perceptIOn, representation, and action (see also Figure VI.1).
tor that cannot be underestimated: Literary texts offer possible interpre-
tations of the past and develop a number of - partly affirmative, partly VI.2,4 A narratology of cultural memory?
subversive - narrative potentials. How these potentials are actualized in Ricoeur e.m?hasizes that for those interested in a semiotic analysis of
the social arena is a matter of negotiation and contestation. th: text, ]t ]s solely mimesis z, its configuration, which is accessible. He
From a media studies perspective, a literary work's prefiguration and pomts ~ut that '~ science of the text can be established only upon the
refiguration can be observed in the ways it has been premediated and abstractIOn. of mimesi~z, and may consider only the internal laws of
remediated. Refiguration manifests itself in remediating activities such a work of Itterature, wIthout any regard for the two sides of the text'
as intertextuality and different forms of intermedial references (film (1984, 53). What can narratology, as a science of the narrative text
adaptation, digitalization, and so on). A literary text's premediation is contribute to understanding literature's mnemonic dimension? Wha~
more difficult to pin down, but clues as to the media schemata which are the possibilities, limits, and pitfalls of a narratology of cultural
might have prefigured the text can be found by looking at earlier media memory?
representations which display, for example, similar narrative patterns From a narratological perspective, the totality of the 'internal laws'
and rhetoric strategies. of the literary text can be termed its 'narrative potential'. Roy Sommer
To sum up, literary narratives mediate between pre-existing memory (2000, 328) defines the narrative potential of fictional texts as 'an
culture on the one hand and its potential restructuring on the other. assumption substantiated by the text regarding the possible effects of
Connected with this mediation process is an exchange in two direc- the narrative strategies which structure and organize its content and are
tions. First, the exchange between cultural memory and the literary text thus essential for its meaning'. The narrative potential is thus a purely
on the level of mimesis]: The literary text makes reference to contents, textual feature; It must be distingUished from actual historical realiza-
forms, media, and practices of memory. Second, the exchange takes tions, effects and functions of a literary text. Reformulated in the terms
of Ricoeur's model: An analysis of the narrative potential allows us to
draw hypotheses about both the text's refiguration, its realization, effects,
and fu~ctions ~n culture (mimesis 3), as well as about its prefiguration,
mimesis z
the h?flZO.ns WIthin which it is produced and the challenges it answers
configuration to (mimesIs l )· Such hypotheses will of course never pinpoint the actual
of fictional
memory narratives pre- and refigurations of a literary text. But in combination with sound
(> mnemonic potential) historical knOWledge, they promise insight into the work that litera-
ture does in culture. Starting from these premises, we can speak of the
mnemonic potential of a literary text, which materializes on the level
mimesis 1 literary text mimesis 3 mimesis z and which can provide clues as to the pre- and refiguration of
the text in memory culture.
mnemonic collective
prefiguration refiguration
As a contribution to a narratology of cultural memory, and using
war novels as well as (post-)colonial fiction as examples, I have intro-
duced elsewhere the notion of the 'rhetoric of collective memory'
hypotheses about hypotheses about (see .Edl 2003, 2004, 2006), which describes such mnemonic potentials
mnemonic horizons actualization,
and challenges in effects, and functions of for lIterature to transmit versions of a socially shared past. I define the
mnemonic context
memory culture literature in memory culture rhetoric of collective memory as an ensemble of narrative forms which
pr~v~kes .the naturalization of a literary text as a medium of memory.
Figure VI.l The three levels of the mimesis of cultural memory I dlstmgUlsh among various modes of this rhetoric.
158 Memory in Culture Literature as a Medium ofCulturai Memory 159

Different modes of remembering are closely linked to different modes ~onvey the linguistic specificity and fluidity of a near past. Travel
of (narrative) representation (see chapter IY.2). Changes in the form of lIterature often operates with such features of the experiential mode.
representation may effect changes in the kind of memory we retain of So do war novels presenting 'the soldiers' tale' (Hynes 1997), that
the past. In the following I will give some examples of how such mne- is, vie.ws '.from below'. And much Holocaust fiction resorts to strong
monic modes are constituted in the medium of literary narrative. It is, expenentlal modes (but also shows, reflexively, the limits of experi-
however, never one formal characteristic alone which is responsible for ence and its representation).
the emergence of a certain mode; instead we have to look at whole clus- • Antagonistic mode: Literary forms which help to promote one ver-
ters of narrative features, whose interplay may contribute to a certain Sio~ of the past and reject another constitute an antagonistic mode.
memory effect. It is, of course, impossible to predict how stories will be ThiS mode of remembering tends to infuse literary works which
interpreted by actual readers; but certain kinds of narrative representa- repr~s~nt identity-groups and their versions of the past, for example,
tions seem to bear an affinity to different modes of remembering, and femll11st or postcolonial writing. We also find it in imperial fictions
thus one may risk some hypotheses on the potential memorial power, or ~nd in politically oriented litterature engagee. Negative stereotyping
effects, of literary forms. IS the most obvious technique of establishing an antagonistic mode.
Literary works represent the past in varying combinations of experi- More elabo.rate is the resort to biased perspective structures: Only
ential, monumental, antagonistic, historicizing, and reflexive modes. the memones of a certain group are presented as true, while those
Some of the narrative forms involved in establishing different mne- versions articulated by members of conflicting memory cultures are
monic modes are narrative voice (such as personal, authorial and com- deconstructed as false. 'We'-narration may underscore this claim.
munal voice; see Lanser 1992), forms of unreliable narration, internal • Reflexive mode: As already mentioned in chapter VI.1.2, literature
focalization, circumstantial realism, metaphors of memory, and literary always allows its readers both a first- and a second-order observation.
chronotopoi. The following three examples show how different modes It gives us the illusion of glimpsing the past and is, often simultane-
can be constituted in the literary text: ously, a major medium of critical reflection upon such processes of
representation. Literature is a medium which simultaneously builds
• Experiential mode: This mode is constituted by literary forms which and o~serves mem~ry. Prominent reflexive modes are constituted by
represent the past as lived-through experience. Experiential modes narrative forms whICh draw attention to processes and problems of
evoke the 'living memory' of contemporary history, generational remembering, for instance by explicit narratorial comments on the
or family memories (that is, those forms of cultural remembering workings of memory, metaphors of memory, the juxtaposition of dif-
which the Assmanns subsume under the 'communicative memory'). feren~ versions of th~ past (narrated or focalized), and also by highly
In contrast, monumental modes envisage the past as mythical (that expenmental narrative forms (like the inversion of chronology in
is, as part of the 'Cultural Memory'); and historicizing modes con- t~e n~vels by. Kurt Vonnegut and Martin Amis). Most of present-day
vey literary events and persons as if they were objects of scholarly hlstonographlC metafiction features strong reflexive modes.
historiography. Texts in which the experiential mode predominates
tend to stage communicative memory's main source: the episodic- Such an alliance of narratology and cultural memory studies is made
autobiographical memories of witnesses. Typical forms of this mode possible through the assumption that literary forms are 'semanticized'
of literary remembering are the 'personal voice' generated by first- (Niinning 1997): They are not simply 'vessels' to hold content, but carry
person narration; addressing the reader in the intimate way typical of meaning themselves. However, memory culture also follows what Meir
face-to-face communication; the use of the more immediate present Sternberg (1982, 148) has termed the 'Proteus Principle': 'in different
tense; lengthy passages focalised by an 'experiencing I' in order to contexts ... the same form may fulfil different functions and different
convey embodied, seemingly immediate experience; circumstantial forms the same function'. An unequivocal correlation between liter-
realism, a very detailed presentation of everyday life in the past (the ary form and mnemonic function is thus impossible; this is a relation
effet de reel turns into an effet de memoire); and, finally, the represen- which is ne~~r stable. For example, first-person narration can convey
tation of everyday ways of speaking (sociolects, slang, and so on) to the authentiCity of the eyewitness in one literary text, yet undermine
160 Memory in Culture Literature as a Medium of Cultural Memory 161

the reliability of the narrated past in the other. Just as forms of cultural for example when during each year devoted to Shakespeare, Goethe or
remembering change from one historical period to the next and from Cervantes the mentioning of those authors and their works is used to
one cultural context to the other, so too do the forms of their repre- awaken ideas of a 'great' tradition and national identity among people
sentation. Moreover, literary memory narratives are not confined to across a broad spectrum of society - even if the texts in question were
the written medium. They can also manifest themselves in oral, visual, never even read by many of those same people. On the individual
and digital media. Narrative is a transmedial phenomenon (Ryan 2004); level, our 'collected memory', literature exerts great influence as a media
and the stories of cultural memory therefore travel not only across framework of remembering. Literary stories and their patterns are rep-
time and space, but also 'across media', from novels to drama to movies resented in our semantic and episodic memory systems. They shape
to TV series and to the Internet. What we need, then, is not universal knowledge, life experience, and autobiographical remembering.
recipes, but instead flexible categories of a context-sensitive narratology,
VI.3.1 Literature as a storage medium: Cultural texts
which takes into consideration the historically and culturally variable
contents, forms, media, practices, and ideologies of cultural memory, The importance of literature as a medium of collective memory has
and orients its narratological analysis accordingly (for more on a cul- always been at stake in discussions about the literary canon (see chapter
tural narratology, see Erll 2005; on political narratology, Bal 2004). IlI.2.3). One influential approach to canonization was developed by
In the field of literary studies - which redefines itself more and more Aleida and Jan Assmann, who coined the term 'cultural texts'. Because
as part of 'media culture studies' and shows interdisciplinary leanings this concept can help us understand how literary works are turned into
towards cultural history, cultural sociology, and media theory - a nar- storage media of cultural memory, the 'cultural text' will be discussed in
ratology of cultural memory is only one option, one methodological the following and then serve as a starting point for further reflections
tool. For the study of literature as a part of memory culture, it is ideally on literature as a medium of memory.
combined with other, contextualizing approaches, which accompany .Ian and Aleida Assmann introduced the 'cultural text' as a prototypi-
and enrich the text-centred analysis. Such wider social and media per- cal instance of the Cultural Memory's 'reusable texts' (see chapter 11.4).
spectives will be presented in the following section, which addresses the However, it is important to note that the term neither refers exclu-
question of how literary works can become effective media of cultural sively to literature, nor is it restricted to written media. An oral tale,
memory. a legal document, a holy scripture, or a political tract can, depending
on certain circumstances, all be assigned the status of 'cultural text'.
This tendency to level the differences between objectivations of vari-
VI.3 Literature as a medium of collective and
ous symbol systems and media technologies comes as a result of the
individual memory
Assmanns' definition of 'text', which they understand, following the
As we know from Aby Warburg, all media of cultural memory need to linguist Konrad Ehlich, as 'retrieved communication' (J. Assmann 2006,
be actualized, charged with meaning, in order to unfold their mnemonic 103; see chapter V.2). Defining text in this way means that it is 'not the
potential and to have an effective presence within the social sphere. written form that is decisive, but the act of storage and transmission'.
This is also the case for literary works. Literature as a medium of cultural What constitutes a text is thus its separation from the immediate speech
memory is therefore first and foremost a phenomenon of reception. situation. Communication via texts means that 'the immediate situation
When we study literary works and ask what functions they fulfil in of copresence is replaced by the "expanded context"'. Texts are 'speech
memory culture, we must start from the premise of their appropriation acts' in expanded contexts; they connect producers and receivers of a
through readers, from the aspect of refiguration. message across spatial and temporal borders (ibid.). Defined in this way,
On the collective level, literary works can fulfil all three functions texts can indeed take shape in different media and symbol systems.
of media of cultural memory (see chapter VA). Literature is a storage There are, for example, 'oral texts', such as orally transmitted myths;
medium and a circulation medium. Both aspects will be discussed in but 'not every utterance is a text' (104).
the following by using the concepts of 'cultural texts', 'collective texts', What Aleida and .Ian Assmann refer to as 'cultural texts' is a 'poten-
and 'literary afterlives'. Literature can moreover serve as a media cue, tiation' of such texts. Cultural texts 'possess' a special normative and
162 Memory in Culture
Literature as a Medium of Cultural Memory 163

formative authority for a society as a whole' (I. Assmann 2006, 104). about cultural origins, identity, values and norms; and the search for
Cultural texts, too, are media-unspecific and manifest themselves in truth are. further characteristics of the specific reading practice con-
oral, visual, and written media. An oral narrative, a painting, a ritual, nected ~Ith the cultural text. Given this definition it is little surprising
or a legal document can take on the function of the cultural text. No that Alelda Assmann sees the Bible as the 'paradigmatic cultural text'
matter what media are used to store and transmit the cultural texts of (ibid., 237).
a society, according to Aleida and Jan Assmann's theory, they are all Re~ding a literary work as a cultural text seems to imply both a retro-
functionally equivalent; they all produce cultural identity and coher- spective reduction in literary ambiguity and an enrichment in cultural
ence: 'Everything can become a sign that represents community. It is
~eaning. :he publication of a piece of writing as a literary text marks
not the medium that matters, but rather the symbolic function and the It as. a verSIon of reality, one which is by no means unambiguous or nor-
structure of the sign' (I. Assmann 1992, 139). matIve, but rather marked as fictional, and which therefore lends itself
What can we say about the workings of literature as a cultural text? t~ different interpretations. This is certainly a convention, but at least
How can a piece of literature be transformed into such a normative and since th~ development of the modern system of art in the eighteenth
formative medium? These questions are answered in Aleida Assmann's century It has become standard practice. The prerequisite for a literary
essay 'Was sind kulturelle Texte?' (1995, 'What are cultural texts?'). She text to be read as a cultural text, however, is that it must be simultane-
emphasizes that the 'cultural text' is not a literary genre that could be ously ~i~plified and .aver-determined. The polyvalence of the literary
identified by the text's inherent characteristics. It is instead a framework t~xt d.lsslp~tes and gIves way to a uniform message; and its original
of reception. Assmann differentiates between two 'reception frame- ~ll~tofl~al ,sltuatedne~s ~s lost to view. With the loss of its 'literary' and
works. 00' within which texts are constituted either as "literary" or as hlstoncal. charactenshcs, however, it gains 'cultural' depth: The cul-
"cultural'" (ibid., 234). The two frames are characterized by 'differing tural text IS now taken to impart a 'binding, ineluctable, and timeless
approaches to potentially identical texts'. The particular reading, or truth' (ibid., 242).
actualization, thus cannot be deduced from any text-internal features. It The cultural text is a storage medium, or, to be more exact: It is
is in fact based on the 'decisionist act' of the reader, who assigns to the through t~e reception framework of 'cultural texts' that literary texts
text either the status 'cultural' or the status 'literary' (ibid.). are turned mto storage media of the Cultural Memory. For centuries, the
From the multitude of literary works which a society produces and works of Homer, Virgil, OVid, Dante, Shakespeare, Milton, and Bunyan
preserves, only a few are chosen and attributed a 'cultural', and this have ~een a core component of enculturation, in school or religious
means for Aleida Assmann: canonical status. This attribution funda- educat~on. They were medium and object of the Cultural Memory at the
mentally changes the way these texts are perceived. Once they enter same time: media which 'remember something' about a community's
into the core area of the Cultural Memory, literary texts are turned into ~ast and are ~hemselves remembered as canonical works. They thus fUl-
normative and formative texts and thereby gain additional semantic fIlled the typICal double function of storage media of cultural memory
and pragmatic dimensions: They now seem to embody - and are used (see chapter VA. 1).
to transmit - cultural, national or religious identity as well as shared
values and norms. By establishing a 'canon of religious, national, or VI.3.2 Literature as a circulation medium: Collective texts and
educational texts' (ibid., 241), societies describe themselves. literary afterlives
Aleida Assmann emphasizes that cultural texts are made to differ from But what about all those other literary texts which are not canonized
literary texts through an entirely different reading practice. Instead of not conceived. of ~s a vital component of 'a culture'? In order to full;
solitary reception, aesthetic distance, and the desire for novelty, the grasp and do Justice to the role of literature in the social production
reception of cultural texts is characterized by 'reverence, repeated study, of memory, we must distance ourselves from the assumption that
solemnity' (ibid., 242). This type of reading is guided by the reader's cer- only so-called high literature is read in association with the Cultural
tainty that he or she is, through the act of reading, part of a mnemonic ~emory. (O~ the contrary, often it is precisely 'popular' or even 'trivial'
community. Unconditional identification with what is supposed to be hterature whIch makes use of its mythical and symbolic resources, as the
the text's message; a desire to acquire - through reading - knowledge example of fantasy fiction clearly shows.) Literary works of all origins
 Literature as a Medium of Cultural Memory 165
164 Memory in Culture

and qualities can produce and transmit images of the past - within the poststructuralist positions which claims that all facts are fiction and
framework of the Cultural Memory as well as within communicative every narration about the past is literature. A look at the actual reading
memory. The concept of 'collective texts' is therefore meant to describe strategies of empirical interpretive communities, however, seems to jus-
literature's function as a circulation medium that disseminates and tify the assumption that the ontological gap between fiction and reality
shapes cultural memory. As in the case of the Assmanns' 'cultural texts', postulated in theory is smoothly overcome in practice, and that literary
the 'collective text', too, is first and foremost a phenomenon of recep- works clearly shape our ideas about past realities.
tion. But in contrast to the cultural text, the concept of the collective Literature is frequently produced and received in rather pragmatic
text points to a way of reading in which literary works are actualized not ways, and often enough with a referentializing and disambiguating eye.
so much as precious objects to be remembered themselves, but rather as The ideological, didactic, and normative functions of historical novels
vehicles for envisioning the past. Collective texts create, circulate, and war literature, and children's books and also their 'this is the way i~
shape contents of cultural memory. was' tone are one example. Yet this does not render obsolete the bor-
Examples of collective texts abound: Historical novels, such as Walter ders between the symbol systems. Readers do not confuse an historical
Scott's Waverley (1814), provided large audiences with a sense of the novel with historiography, or an elegy with a memorial service. Indeed,
course of history; war novels such as Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet in contrast, one can see what a sensitive topic the transition between
on the Western Front (1929) seemed to take their readership back to the symbol systems in fact is in mnemonic practice when one considers
battle; romances such as Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice (1813) or the social performance, the way that readers deal with, autobiography
Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind (1936) had the power to shape or autobiographical writing. As soon as the 'literarization' of a lived life
images of the lifeworld in past periods and regions; Gabriel Garcia crosses the line to fictionalization, such texts are as a rule no longer
Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967) and Salman Rushdie's accepted by readers as autobiographical. The 'Wilkomirski Case', the
Midnight's Children (1981) inspired an imagination of South American heated discussion about the autobiography of an ostensible Holocaust
and Indian history in worldwide audiences. All of these are instances survivor (Fragments, 1995) which - along with the persona of the
of the circulation of literature through global media cultures, often in author - soon turned out to be fictive, has been one of the best exam-
translation, thus constituting what one might call a 'world literature ples for the impenetrable lines which the social sphere draws between
of memory' (see Damrosch 2003). Most examples are, moreover, cases different symbol systems, despite all the similarities and overlaps.
in which textual and filmic versions of the same story have provided The power of literature as a circulation medium of cultural memory
mutual mnemonic support. Because narratives of memory tend to travel must therefore be founded on a downright paradoxical reading practice.
across media, the collective text, too, is a transmedial phenomenon. Literary works are perceived as literature, and that means (according
But how does the phenomenon of the collective texts come about? to the specific characteristics of that symbol system) as polyvalent and
Paradoxically, one important condition for literary works to have such interdiscursive forms of representation, which can also integrate imag-
an influence on cultural memory is that readers ascribe to them some ined elements into their versions of the past. Yet simultaneously they are
kind of referentiality. Wolfgang Braungart (1996, 149) is thus correct ascribed a certain kind of referentiality. This referentializing movement
when he argues that 'The disempowering of the text through the in the reading process, however, does not seem to be directed towards
awareness of its fictional status has evidently not yet been completely the pre-narrative reality of past events (as is the case when reading
achieved. This is not exclusively a problem of the "logic of fiction," nor historiographical texts), but rather towards the horizons of meaning
of the (onto-)Iogical status of fiction, and cannot be explained solely that are produced by cultural memory - and thus to a 'reality' which is
by recourse to narrative form and narrative time, but must also take already profoundly symbolically condensed, narratively structured, and
. into account reading habits and desires.' Literary theory might well be transformed by genre patterns. What is at stake when reading litera-
able to show that and how fictional worlds differ from non-fictional ture as collective texts is thus 'truth' according to memory. Collective
representations. And this basic research is indeed necessary if we want texts have to 'fit', have to be able to resonate with a memory culture's
to gain insight into the specific forms of expression and the epistemo- horizons of meaning, its (narrative) schemata, and its existing images
logical possibilities of literary texts; and to counteract all-too-simple of the past. These are the grounds on which 'mnemonic authenticity'
166 Memory in Culture Literature as a Medium of Cultural Memory 167

is generated. And this is why Scott's visions of the past could exert time - it was received, discussed, used, canonized, forgotten, censored,
such great influence in the historicist nineteenth century; Remarque's and re-used. What is it that confers repeatedly upon some literary works
narrative of young men at war in a time bristling with generational a new lease of life in changing social contexts, whereas others are for-
antagonism; Rushdie's magic realist image of Indian history in the post- gotten and relegated to the archive? These questions may be addressed
modern age; and Wilkomirski's forged autobiography in an age used to from social, medial, and textual viewpoints - and the phenomenon of
'fragmented' patterns in Holocaust-representation. literary afterlives will arguably be tackled best by a balanced combina-
Collective texts emerge from, intervene in, and can only be under- tion of all three.
stood in conjunction with the 'plurimedia networks' of cultural The social perspective emphasizes the active appropriations of a lit-
memory (see chapter V.5.2). To give one example: Around the millen- erary text by social actors. How do changing social formations - with
nium, the topic of flight and expulsion of Germans from the eastern their specific views of history and present challenges, their interests and
territories at the end of the Second World War was slowly (re-)emerging expectations, discourses and reading practices - receive and re-actualize
as a topic of social discourse in Germany - pervading political discus- literature? How do the responses to the same literary work change from
sions, newspaper commentaries, and TV programmes. Gunter Grass's generation to generation? For example, as is shown by]esseka Batteau
novella Crabwalk (2002) moved into this burgeoning mnemonic field, (2009), the social performance and public reputation of iconic Dutch
gave shape and articulated much of that which until then might have authors, such as Gerard Reve, changed greatly over the past decades
seemed shapeless and disconnected, and was consequently awarded along with the transformations of Dutch society, and this in turn also
the status of 'taboo-breaker' by the German press. As Kirsten Prinz has altered the images of the religious past that their works convey.
argued with a view to the heated discussions following the publication Looking at 'literary afterlives' from a media culture perspective means
of Grass's novella: 'The border between fiction and non-fiction becomes directing the focus to the intermedial networks, which maintain and
functional here: With its limited claim to referentiality and depragma- sllstain the continuing impact of certain stories: intertextual and inter-
tization, literary works can put certain versions of the past to the test; medial references, rewriting and adaptation, forms of commentary and
the social and political relevance of which is then determined in non- cross-reference. Using the concepts of premediation and remediation
fictional, say journalistic, discourse' (Prinz 2004, 193). I have shown elsewhere (Erll 2007, 2009b) how the narratives and
While the concept of 'collective texts' directs attention to such iconic images of the 'Revolt of 1857' (a colonial war in Northern India
synchronic networks and the circulation of cultural memory through against British rule) were pre-formed by stories and images of simi-
literature, the study of 'literary afterlives' (which is reminiscent of Aby lar earlier events (such as the 'Black Hole of Calcutta' of 1756), then
Warburg's research on art's afterlife) opens up a diachronic perspective. remediated in colonial and postcolonial contexts across the spectrum
Historical approaches to the 'life' and ongoing impact of literature in of available media technologies (from newspaper articles to novels,
memory culture are gaining increasing currency in memory studies. photography, film, and the Internet), in order to turn, finally, into
There are, for example, studies on the 'afterlives' of Walter Scott's nov- premediators of other stories and events (such as the Amritsar massacre
els (Rigney 2004, 2011), on more than 300 years of Bunyan's Pilgrim's of 1919, nostalgic postimperial novels of the 1950s, or current debates
Progress and its worldwide transmission (Hofmeyr 2004), and on the about terrorism).
afterlives of anticolonial prophecy in South African literature and other In a more text-centred perspective, we may ask if there are certain
media (Wenzel 2009). Such research addresses the basic process of mem- properties of literary works which make them more 'actualizable' than
ory culture: that of continuation and actualization. And it testifies to others, which effect that the works lend themselves to rereading, rewrit-
what Ann Rigney (2010, 17) has identified as the 'specificity of the arts ing, remediating, and continued discussion. For example, studying the
as media of collective remembrance', namely their 'temporally convo- long and rich afterlife of Walter Scott's Ivanhoe (1819), Ann Rigney (2010,
luted combination of "monumentality'" (that is, their persistence) and 215f.) has shown that the novel's continuing appeal can be attributed
'malleability' (that is, their 'openness to appropriation by others'). to a combination of two (seemingly contradictory) characteristics of its
In reconstructing the 'social life' (sensu Appadurai 1986) or 'cultural plot: More than any other novel by Walter Scott, Ivanhoe is both 'highly
biography' of a literary text we may ask how - across long periods of schematic' and highly 'ambivalent'. On the one hand, it offers a basic
168 Memory in Culture Literature as a Medium ofCuitural Memory 169

narrative paradigm that can be used as a model 'for dealing with other House, the Strand, or the Inns of Court - reminded me of Dickens'
events'; on the other hand, it keeps readers puzzled and engaged by its novels read in childhood' (Halbwachs 1980, 23f.). The complex inter-
'de-stabilizing tension between the outcome of the story and its emo- relations of Iiter~ture and memory emerge clearly here: The perception
tional economy'. (On women's rewriting, see also Plate 2010.) of the London
. Cityscape reminds the visitor of a literary work, and th e
What the 'cultural texts', 'collective texts' and 'literary afterlives' all past rea d m~s,. in turn, pre-form his appreciation of the city. Because
have in common is that they are approaches to studying literature as a Halbwachs IS mterested in social frameworks, he concludes, 'so I took
medium of cultural memory; they mean taking on a certain perspective my walk with Dickens' (ibid.). Like the architect or the painter, there-
on literary texts - and often, one and the same text may potentially be fo.re, the (then long-deceased) author of a novel can form a SOCial group
regarded through all three lenses. However, each lens raises different WIth t~e rememberer and serve as a virtual communication partner in
questions and will yield different answers. While the 'cultural-texts the SOCially shared production of individual memory.
approach' looks at literary works as storage media, and asks about the A literary scholar might find Halbwachs's statements too imprecise, or
social institutions involved in the preservation and interpretation of perhaps even wrong. And, of course, the representations of London in
canonical, holy, or classical texts, the 'collective-texts approach' is Bleak House (1852), Gr~a.t Expectations (1860/61) or Oliver Twist (1837/38)
more interested in (often popular) literature's interventions in current are not exact and venfIable representations of the metropolis such as
memory-debates, in its lively depiction of the past, and in the ways we wo~ld expect to find in historical treatises or maps. Dickens's novels
in which it thus shapes collective images of history. The 'afterlives are ficti~na~ texts, which do not mimetically reproduce London's reality,
approach', finally, transfers these concerns to the diachronic dimen- but WhICh mstead create poietic models of the city. It is equally unwar-
sion. It means asking about the continuing impact of some literary ranted to ascribe to the real author Charles Dickens the description of
works, how they manage to 'live on' and remain in use and meaning- the location, the fi~tive events that take place there, or their meaning.
ful to readers; and it means addressing the complex social, textual and Na.rrat?Jogy maintains that fictional worlds are mediated by fictive nar-
intermedial processes involved in this dynamics. To round out the rative Instances (which may be extremely unreliable). But how can fic-
discussion of literature as a mediator of memory, the following chapter tive depictions, conveyed by an equally fictive narrator, influence a real
will complement the approaches delineated so far with psychological situation? For Halbwachs, literature obviously functions as a medium
perspectives on the relation of literature and individual memory. from which social frames of reference can be derived. Literature is a
~ad~e .medial. The reading of literary texts would appear to shape the
VI.3.3 Literature as a media framework of memory mdI~ldu~1 memory as much as social interaction within groups or com-
How can literature be conceived of as a medium of individual memory? mUnIcatIOn through other, non-fictional media.
On the one hand, literature is a part of everybody's semantic memory. And inde~d, much recent research has shown that literature plays a
We remember the characters and plots of the novels we have read and central ~ole m t~e perception and remembering of individual life experi-
the movies we have watched. Such individual actualization is a neces- ence. It IS a medIUm which already pre-forms our encounter with reality;
sary condition for the kind of socially shared reading practices described and then helps re-shape experience into our most personal memories.
above with the concepts of 'cultural texts' and 'collective texts' (and, of In her book An Intimate History of Killing (1999, 28), Joanna Bourke
course, it can be at odds with socially dominant readings). On the other provides a series of examples for the efficacy of literary and filmic rep-
hand - and perhaps more disturbingly - literature is also a medium resentations of war. She reports, for example, that during the invasion
which shapes episodic memory: the way we recall our life experience. ?f .Gr~nada in 1983 American soldiers played Wagnerian operas, thus
To understand literature's significance for episodic remembering, ImItating Colonel Kilgore (Robert Duvall) - a protagonist from the war
let us turn, once more, to Maurice Halbwachs's anecdote of a 'walk movie Apocalypse Now (1979) who flew his helicopter attacks to the
through London' (see chapter VA.2). Halbwachs not only emphasizes soundtrack of the 'The Ride of the Valkyries'. Here we find life imitat-
the role that different social frameworks and media play for his per- ing literature, as Oscar Wilde would have it. And also in less dramatic
ception of the city; he also hints at the importance of literary models: situations of everyday life, literature has an - often inconspicuous-
'Many impressions during my first visit to London - St. Paul's, Mansion presence, for example, when we suffer under the burden of our work
170 Memory in Culture
Literature as a Medium of Cultural Memory 171
like 'Sisyphus', search for a suitable partner like Elizabeth Bennet,
migrate, get lost and in danger like Odysseus, feel jealous like Othello, follow one another in a plausible manner, and thus appear particularly
authentic, quite logical, and thus 'real'.
or appreciate a field of spring flowers like Wordsworth's persona. The
screenwriters' guru Robert McKee (1997, 62) emphasizes the influence One thought-provoking insight into the relation between literature
of literary structures on the way we think about ourselves and our lives: memory, and our ideas of authenticity has been gained in the field of
neuroscientific :esearch. Welzer mentions 'that the neuronal processing
'Most human beings believe that ... they are the single and active pro-
pathways for VIsual perception and for imagined contents overlap to
tagonists of their own existence; that their existence operates throl~gh
such an exte~t. that even when remembering purely imaginary events,
continuous time within a consistent, casually interconnected reahty;
people can VIVIdly see them "before their eyes'" (ibid., 39). This would
that inside this reality events happen for explainable and meaningful
reasons.' In Mark Turner's (1996) words, we all possess a fundamentally perhaps explain. why the condensed images created through literary
tex~s can sometImes not be distinguished in our memory from that
'literary mind'. . . .
whIch we have actually experienced personally. However that may
The key to literature's influence on individual memory hes 10 Its
be, from a memory studies perspective, literature clearly proves to be
circulation of cultural schemata - and arguably, it is no coincidence
'part of a social, cultural, and historical intertextual web, a distributed
that Bartlett's fundamental work on cultural schemata was done by memory' (ibid., 187).
using literary narratives an example (see chapter 111.3.1). Today, it is in
particular literature communicated through mass media which plays an
important role as a source of such schemata. From movies ~nd T~ s.eries
to radio-plays and Internet role play games - literary media assimIlate,
~onceiving of 'literature as a medium of cultural memory' requires a
ngorous contextualization of literary works. It means envisioning lit-
embody, alter, and transmit patterns for encoding experience. They thus
erature as a part of memory culture, entangled in its social, medial, and
reinforce existing structures of cultural schematization, but also gener-
mental dimensions. It also calls for a nuanced view, and to some extent
ate new ones; they pre-form experience (of war and revolution, but also
entails a modification, of basic assumptions made by traditional liter-
of graduation and marriage) and guide recall into certain paths.
ary theory, for example, regarding the clear separability between text
The function of literature as a media framework of memory and as
and context, literature's (non-)referentiality, actual reading practices
generator of cultural schemata has also been studied in the fields of
(which are in dire need of rigorous study), or the aUeged stability and
social psychology and the neurosciences. Harald Welzer (2002), for
unchangeability of literary works. What is at stake here is the realization
example, conducted interviews with veterans of the Second wo~ld
that the literary production of cultural memory is an ongoing process,
War and realized that literary models taken from popular war movies
characterized by a dynamic interplay between text and context, the
(ibid., 179f.) and prose fiction (from the Odyssey to Karl May. and th.e
individual and the collective, the social and the medial.
Grimms' fairy tales; ibid., 186) serve as templates for autobIOgraphi-
cal remembering. Welzer considers it 'rather probable that we have all
added to our life stories elements and episodes which other - fictional
or real- people have experienced and not we ourselves' (ibid., 16~).
He argues that fiction in particular provides 'tested models f~r stones
which have been proved successful, with which one can captivate and
excite one's listeners' (ibid., 186). Our accessing of already existing
stories, however, does not seem to occur consciously. On the contrary,
as a rule, the interviewees considered their memories to be a quite
precise representation of their past experience. In fact, the feeling that
our autobiographical memories are authentic tends to be supported by
the very elements taken from literary texts. By using literary structures,
we overwrite the incoherent events of the past in such a way that they